September 16, 2012 – Republic of Mining

Northlander shutdown shows Liberals are clueless on the northern Ontario – by Peter Worthington (QMI Agency/Toronto Sun – September 14, 2012)

September 16, 2012

http://www.torontosun.com/home

TORONTO – Why do governments do what they do — especially when it makes no sense? In March, the McGuinty government announced that the rail service between Toronto and Cochrane would cease — that after Friday, Sept. 28, the Northlander would no longer service communities on the 700-km route.

This means that communities such as Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Huntsville, North Bay, Temagami, New Liskeard, Swastika, Cochrane and points in between will lose their train service. Instead, the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) will rely on buses to service the communities.

Northern Development Minister Rick Bartolucci explained the decision: “No government has worked harder than ours … to make the ONTC viable. Our priority is to invest in areas that matter most to northerners such as health care, highways and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund.”

Supposedly, costs of maintaining the one-train per day to and from Cochrane have escalated from $28 million a year to $100 million. If you’ll pardon the expression, what a load of crock.

[Sudbury Vale] Steelworkers prez disturbed by police decision – by Heidi Ulrichsen – (Sudbury Northern Life – September 14, 2012)

September 16, 2012

This article came from Northern Life, Sudbury’s biweekly newspaper.

Police won’t lay charges in miners’ deaths

Steelworkers Local 6500 president Rick Bertrand said he’s “angry” Greater Sudbury Police have decided not to lay any charges against Vale in the deaths of two miners at Vale’s Stobie Mine June 8, 2011.

Charges could have been laid under the Westray Bill, which makes organizations criminally liable when they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent injuries and deaths on their property.

Insp. Todd Zimmerman of the Greater Sudbury Police said police “conducted a thorough investigation, and we did not reach a threshold of criminality.” There was “no criminal negligence found on the behalf of anyone,” he said.

Jordan Fram and Jason Chenier were killed when a run of muck unexpectedly came out of the ore pass close to where they were working at the 3,000-foot level of the mine, burying them and killing them instantly.

Greenstone excited to be Ring of Fire ‘gateway’ – by Bryan Meadows (Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal – September 16, 2012)

September 16, 2012

The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal is the daily newspaper of Northwestern Ontario.

The Municipality of Greenstone is going to be busy place over the next couple of decades, its Mayor Renald Beaulieu predicts. “More and more it is becoming clear that the municipality is emerging as the gateway to the Ring of Fire,” Beaulieu said Friday.

He cited Noront Resources Ltd.’s release last week of its updated feasibility study, and talk of a new power transmission route east of Lake Nipigon as reasons for his optimism. Beaulieu noted that Noront’s “base case” for its Eagle’s Nest mining project is predicated on transporting Ring of Fire ore using the proposed north-south corridor, with a southern terminus in Greenstone’s Nakina ward.

“For decades, Nakina was viewed as the end of the road, but,” he said, “increasingly it seems that Nakina, a proud part of Greenstone, will soon be seen as the start of the road.” A second development that has the mayor excited is that the Ontario Power Authority is now considering an east of Lake Nipigon transmission corridor.

OPA has informed the Northwest Ontario First Nations Transmission Planning Committee that it is now studying the transmission line route, Beaulieu said. The proposed transmission line would supply the Ring of Fire and bring grid-connected electricity to First Nations such as Marten Falls.

RANKING PROVINCIAL PREMIERS OF THE LAST 40 YEARS: THE NUMBERS SPEAK – by Jeremy Leonard (Instritute for Research on Public Policy – June-July 2012)

September 16, 2012

www.irpp.org

As part of the IRPP’s 40th anniversary, 30 eminent historians, political scientists, economists, journalists and policy advisers from across Canada were asked by Policy Options to pick their top 5 choices for best provincial premier since the
Institute’s founding in 1972, and their collective choice was emphatic: Peter Lougheed by a landslide. Not only did he receive 21 of 30 possible first-place votes, he also ran the table on nine questions related to leadership, fiscal and
economic management, and intergovernmental relations. IRPP Research Director Jeremy Leonard, who collected and tabulated the results, dissects the numbers behind the rankings.

he returns are in from the Policy Options panel of 30 jurors — eminent historians, political scientists, economists, journalists and policy advisers from across Canada — on the best provincial premiers to have held office since the founding of the IRPP 40 years ago.

From a list of 18 potential candidates, they were asked to select their choices of the five best and rank them from 1 to 5. The ranking points are calculated as the weighted sum of all top-5 votes received by the premier in question, with a number 1 ranking counting for 5 points, a number 2 ranking counting for 4 points, and so on.

Federal government won’t block efforts to limit asbestos exports – by Sarah Schmidt (Montreal Gazette – September 15, 2012)

September 16, 2012

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

OTTAWA — The Conservative government announced Friday it will no longer be a champion of asbestos on the world stage, effectively conceding the end of the asbestos industry in Quebec with a promise of up to $50 million to diversify the economy of the mining communities.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis, who represents a riding at the heart of Quebec’s asbestos mining region, said he didn’t want to abandon the industry, but said Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois left Ottawa no choice. During the summer campaign, Marois, who is now premier-designate of Quebec, promised to cancel an $58-million government loan to revive the Jeffrey Mine, signalling the end to Quebec’s long history of asbestos production.e

The federal government’s policy change of heart, unveiled in Thetford Mines by the government’s Quebec lieutenant, means Canada will no longer block international efforts, through the United Nations’ Rotterdam Convention, to place limits on the export of asbestos.

“It would be illogical for Canada to oppose the inclusion of chrysotile (asbestos) in Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention when Quebec, the only province that produces chrysotile, will prohibit its exploitation,” Paradis told reporters, saying it was clear the decision Marois is final, so it wasn’t a time for “academic” consultations.

Canada to stop defending asbestos, striking blow to once-mighty industry – by Andy Blatchford (The Canadian Press/Montreal Gazette – September 15, 2012)

September 16, 2012

http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

MONTREAL – The federal government has tossed in the towel and will stop fighting international efforts to list asbestos as a dangerous substance, striking another blow to a once-mighty Canadian industry now on the verge of extinction.

In a sudden reversal for the Harper government, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said Ottawa will no longer oppose efforts to include asbestos to the UN’s Rotterdam treaty on hazardous materials. For Paradis, the announcement Friday was far from celebratory.

He hails from central Quebec’s asbestos belt and is one of the sector’s staunchest defenders. Paradis looked glum and spoke in a nearly hushed tone as he spoke in his hometown of Thetford Mines, a community still dotted with imposing tailing piles that remind locals of the industry’s once-bustling heyday.

He blamed the new Parti Quebecois provincial government for killing the industry and cast Friday’s move as an inevitable response.

In making the announcement, the Conservatives fired the first shot in what is expected to be a turbulent relationship between Ottawa and the freshly elected PQ.

Alberta’s Advantage [Peter Lougheed] – by Rex Murphy (National Post – September 15, 2012)

September 16, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Most politicians are given an advantage, they are inflated by the offices they hold. High office often takes the ordinary person and makes him or her a little less so. With your standard politician, the position they hold puffs them up somehow, they come to strut a little more, or seem – at least to themselves – a little taller.

Not so Peter Lougheed. He reversed this unhappy dynamic. When Peter Lougheed became premier, the role and office stretched to accommodate him. His maturity of manner, natural charisma and clarity of approach overflowed the office. He was instantly a national figure – a politician the whole country recognized had something to offer far from politics as usual.

There was something about his manner and person that spoke of largeness of design and vision, a seriousness about things that charged his political role with a force and impact not often experienced, and even more rarely embodied so thoroughly as it was in his case.

In short, he was a real leader, and part of this man’s remarkable gift was his utter naturalness, his “fit” for the role. Did ever anyone look more (can anyone ever again?) like a premier of Alberta than Peter Lougheed in his prime?

Peter Lougheed personified rise of the new West – by Doug Owram (Toronto Star – September 16, 2012)

September 16, 2012

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Doug Owram is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia.

In his time in office, people described Peter Lougheed many ways. Depending on the perspective, he was western Canada’s strongest champion, one of the “blue-eyed sheiks,” the obdurate gadfly or a danger to Canada. One Ontario cabinet minister even declared him “a greater threat to Confederation than Quebec’s René Lévesque.” His position was controversial but his insistence on control of Alberta resources did much to define energy policy for the next generation.

The most dramatic flashpoint in his assertion of western power came in the struggle between Alberta and the federal government over the National Energy Program, or NEP. The NEP came out of a combination of federal need and rising oil prices. Middle Eastern events and growing demand for oil internationally had propelled oil from roughly $3 a barrel in 1971, when Lougheed took office as Alberta’s premier, to $35 by the early 1980s.

Peter Lougheed, Mr. Alberta, dies at age 84 – Sandra Martin (Globe and Mail – September 15, 2012)

September 16, 2012

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Mr. Alberta modernized insular province, making it a player on the national stage

Red Tory created political and social legacy that transcended party lines, voted best Canadian premier by Policy Options magazine

Peter Lougheed was Mr. Alberta. Nobody was more successful as a politician, more tenacious in defence of the province or more visionary in industrializing and managing Alberta’s resources and potential. Canny, determined and cosmopolitan, he modernized an insular province and made it a player on the national political stage and in the global oil economy.

A Red Tory, he led a socially conservative electorate through boom and bust as premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985, and created a political and social legacy that transcended politics. Earlier this year, Policy Options magazine voted him the best Canadian premier of the past 40 years.